Why Do Women Have Longer Lives Than Men

Everywhere in the world women live longer than men - but this was not always the case. The available data from rich countries shows that women didn't live longer than men in the 19th century. What makes women live more than men do today, and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which play a significant role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today and not in the past, has to do with the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. For العاب زوجية example, there is evidence that in rich countries the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women's longevity disproportionately.

Everywhere in the world women tend to live longer than men
The first chart below shows life expectancy at birth for men and women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , العاب زوجية this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.

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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.